Part 11
... _Item._ ... Wareit {cursed} mocht this pokishe man be, that causes me haif sa meikill pane, for without hym I wald haif ane far mair plesant subject to discourse upoun. He is not oer meikle spilt, bot he has gottin verray mekill; he has almaist slane me with his braith; it is war nor your unclis, and zeit {yet} I cum na neirar bot sat in ane cheir at the bedfute, and he beand {being} at the uther end thairof.
... _Item._ ... Send me advertisement quhat I sall do, and quhatsumever sall cum thairof I sall obey you; advys to with yourself. Yf ye can fynd out any mair secreit inventioun be medecein, and the baith in Craigmillar.
... _Item._ ... "For certaintie he suspectis that thing ye know, and of his lyif: bot as to the last, how sone I speak twa or thrie guid wordis unto hym, he rejois and is out of doubt."
... _Item._ ... Sie not his quhas fenzeit tearis suld not be sa mekill praysit, nor estemyt, as the trew and faythfull travaillis quhilk I sustene to merit hir place, for obteyning of quhilk, againis my naturall. I betray thame that may impesche me. God forgive me, and God gif you, my onlie luif, the hope and prosperitie that your humble and faythfull luif desyris unto yow, quha hoipis schortlie to be ane uther thing unto yow. {Letter, ii. pp. 167-182.}
... _Item._ ... As to me, howbeit I heir no farther newes from yow. According to my commission, I bring the man with me to Craigmillar upon Munday, quhair he will be all Wednisday. {Letter i., pp. 165-6.}
... _Item._ ... In ane uther lettre, "I pray you, according to your promeis, to discharge your hart to me, utherwayis I will think that my malheure, and the guid composing of thame, that hes not the third part of the faythfull and willing obedience unto yow that I beyre, has wyne, againis my will, that advantage over me quhilk the secund luif of Jason wan; not that I wolde compair yow to ane soe unhappie as he was, nor yit myself to ane soe unpetifull a woman as she...." {Letter iv., p. 185.}
_COMMISSION REMOVED TO WESTMINSTER_
The Conference at Westminster.
[At the beginning of the Westminster Conference, Mary found herself "ever straiter and straiter kept from liberty," and demanded to be allowed to appear in person. Her request and Elizabeth's reply will be found on pp. 145, 148. On the 26th November, Murray made his "eik" or additional charge. For the relevant portions of this document, and of the reply of Mary's Commissioners, see pp. 146-7. On December 6th, Mary's representatives protested that they would withdraw from the Conference if their mistress's demand were not granted. Cecil declined, on a formal point, to receive the protest. On the 6th, 7th, and 8th, Murray produced his proofs. On the 9th, the protest was accepted, and Mary's Commissioners withdrew. After their retirement further evidence was received. It may be of use to enumerate the documents produced at Westminster:--
_PRODUCTIONS AT WESTMINSTER_
The Book of Articles.
Acts of Parliament ratifying the proceedings of the insurgent Lords.
Two contracts of marriage, and record of Bothwell's trial and divorce.
Five of the six letters produced at York, three additional letters, and the sonnets (pp. 162-201).
Recognition of the Regent's Government by Huntly, Argyll, and Herries (pp. 154-5).
Depositions and confessions of Hay, Hepburn, Powrie, Dalgleish, Nelson, and Crawford.
Murray's "Journal or Diary of Events."
The Book of Articles is a document of considerable length. It is a summary of the charges against the Queen of Scots, but contains no important charge which is not to be found elsewhere. The reader is already in possession of its essential allegations. It formed the material for Buchanan's "Detectio," with which it is, at times, almost identical. It is printed, from the Hopetoun MS., in Hosack's "Mary," I. App. B. For the depositions of Nelson and Crawford, see pp. 207-213. The depositions of Hay, Hepburn, Powrie, and Dalgleish do not directly accuse the Queen of the murder, beyond stating that the powder was placed in her room, and they have therefore been omitted. The question of the position of the powder is discussed in Hosack, vol. i. pp. 247-8, and the reader is referred to the authorities there quoted, and to Mr. Hay Fleming's "Mary Queen of Scots," pp. 435-6 (_cf._ also pp. 219-220). The confession of Hepburn (English edition of Buchanan's "Detection") contains the following sentence:--"He said, let no man do evil for counsel of great men ... for surely I thought that night that the deed was done, that although knowledge should be gotten, no man durst have said it was evil done, seeing the handwriting and acknowledging the Queen's mind thereto." No question was put to Dalgleish regarding the casket found in his possession.
A quotation from Murray's "Diary," so far as it bears on the murder, will be found on pp. 213-215.]
_The Earl of Sussex to Sir William Cecil_, October 22, 1568. _Lodge: Illustrations of British History._
This matter must at length take end, either by finding the Scotch Queen guilty of the crimes that are objected against her, or by some manner of composition with a show of saving her honour. The first, I think, will hardly be attempted, for two causes, the one, for that if her adverse party accuse her of the murder by producing of her letters, she will deny them, and accuse the most of them of manifest consent to the murder, hardly to be denied; so as, upon the trial on both sides, her proofs will judicially fall best out, as it is thought. The other, for that their young King is of tender and weak years and state of body; and if God should call him, and their Queen were judicially defaced ... Hamilton, upon his death, should succeed; which Murray's faction utterly detest.
_MARY'S REQUEST_
1568.--November 22. Mary to her Commissioners.
_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 185, _from Queen Mary's Register_, Cott. Lib., Titius C. 12.
Ye shall afore our sister, her nobility, and the whole ambassadors of strange countries, desire, in our name, that we may be licensed to come in proper person afore them all, to answer to that which may or can be proposed and alleged against us by the calumnies of our rebels, since they have free access to accuse us.... And now the said Earl of Murray being permitted to come into her presence, which if the like be not granted us, as is reasonable, and yet our sister will condemn us in our absence, not having place to answer for ourselves, as justice requires; in consideration of the premisses ye shall break off your conference, and proceed no further therein, but take your leave and come away.
_THE REGENT'S "EIK"_
1568.--November 26. Murray's "Eik" or Additional Charge.
_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 206, from Cott. Lib. Calig., C. i. 230.
Whereas in our former answer, upon good respects mentioned in our protestation, we kept back the chiefest causes and grounds, whereupon our actions and whole proceedings were founded, wherewithal seeing our adversaries will not content themselves; but by their obstinate and earnest pressing we are compelled, for justifying of our cause, to manifest the naked truth. It is certain, and we boldly and constantly affirm, that as James, sometime Earl of Bothwell, was the chief executor of the horrible and unworthy murder, perpetrated in the person of umquhile King Henry of good memory, father to our sovereign Lord, and the Queen's lawful husband, so was she of the foreknowledge, counsel, device, persuader and commander of the said murder to be done, maintainer and fortifier of the executors thereof, by impeding and stopping of the inquisition and punishment due for the same, according to the laws of the realm, and, consequently, by marriage with the said James, sometime Earl Bothwell, delated and universally esteemed chief author of the above-named murder. Where through they began to use and exercise an uncouth and cruel tyranny in the whole state of the commonwealth, and with the first (as well appeared by their proceedings) intended to cause the innocent Prince, now our Sovereign Lord, shortly follow his father, and so to transfer the crown from the right line to a bloody murderer and godless tyrant. In which respect the estates of the realm of Scotland finding her unworthy to reign, decreed her demission of the Crown, with the coronation of our sovereign Lord, and establishing of the regiment of that realm, in the person of me, the Earl of Murray....
JAMES, REGENT. PATRICK, L. LINDSAY. MORTON. AD. ORKAD. DUNFERMLINE.
_ANSWER TO THE "EIK"_
1568.--December 1. The Answer of Queen Mary's Commissioners to the "Eik."
_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 213, _from Queen Mary's Register_.
My Lords,--We are heartily sorry to hear that our countrymen should intend to colour their most unjust, ingrate, and shameful doings.... Her Highness made the greatest of them of mean men, if they had used their own calling, Earls and Lords, and now, without any evil deserving on her Grace's part to any of them in deed or word, to be thuswise recompensed with calumnious and false invented bruits {rumours}, slandered in so great a matter, to her reproach, whereof they themselves, that now pretend herewith to excuse their own treasons, were the first inventors, writers with their own hands of that devilish band, the conspiracy of the slaughter of that innocent young gentleman, Henry Stewart, late spouse till our sovereign, and presented to their wicked confederate, James, Earl Bothwell, as was made manifest before ten thousand people at the execution of certain the principal offenders at Edinburgh....
_MARY AND ELIZABETH_
The Queen's Highness, our and their native sovereign, ... gave them in her youth ... the twa part (two-thirds) of the patrimony pertaining to the Crown of Scotland, and seeing that her successors, Kings of that realm, might not maintain their estate upon the third part ... for their evil deservings and most proud contemption ... caused her use the privilege of the laws always granted to the Kings of that realm before, and make revocation before her full age of xxv. years, ... so that it was not the punishment of that slaughter that moved them to this proud rebellion, but the usurping of their Sovereign's supreme authority, and to possess themselves with her great riches....
... Our desire is most earnestly that it should be the Queen's Majesty's pleasure that our Sovereign may be admitted to come into the presence of the Queen's Highness of this realm, her whole nobility, and also in presence of the ambassadors of foreign countries, for more true declaration of her innocency.
1568.--December 4. Elizabeth's Answer.
_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 222, _from Queen Mary's Register_.
I think it very reasonable that she should be heard in her own cause, being so weighty; but to determine whom before, when and what, any time before I understand how they will verify their allegation, I am not as yet resolved.
_THE PRIVY COUNCIL_
1568.--Dec. 4. Proceedings of the Privy Council.
_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 223, _from the Journal of the Privy Council of England_.
Die Sabbati, 4 Decembris 1568, Hora prima post meridiem.
_Present._
THE QUEEN'S MAJESTY.
The Lord Keeper {Sir Nicholas Bacon}. Duke of Norfolk. Marquis {of Northampton}. Lord Steward {Pembroke}. Earl Essex. Earl Bedford. Earl Leicester. Lord Admiral {Lord Clinton}. Lord Chamberlain {Lord Howard of Effingham}. Sir William Cecil. Sir Ralph Sadler. Sir Walt. Mildmay.
The said Bishop {of Ross} and his colleagues, before they came to the Court, sent a message to the Earl of Leicester and Sir William Cecil, requiring to speak with them two apart.... And thereupon the said Commissioners came into the Earl of Leicester's chamber, where the said Bishop in the name of the rest said ... That although the Earl of Murray and his complices had delivered in writing a grievous accusation against the Queen, their Sovereign, and that they were prohibited to make any further answer to any such matter, but only to desire the Queen of Scots might come in person to the presence of the Queen's Majesty to make any further answer to any such matter; yet they having considered with themselves their mistress's intention to have been always from the beginning, that these causes should be ended by the Queen's Majesty by some such good appointment betwix her and her subjects, as might be for her Grace's honour and the common weal of the country, with surety also to the Earl of Murray, and his party ... thought good to declare thus much to the said Earl and Sir William Cecil....
_COUNCIL PROCEEDINGS_
After the said Bishop had reiterated the said motion, as above is mentioned, the Queen's Majesty said: "... Trusting and wishing that the Queen, her sister, should be found innocent, ... she thought it better for her sister's honour and declaration to the world of her innocency, to have the Earl of Murray and his complices charged and reproved for this their so audacious defaming of the Queen, their sovereign, and to receive that which was due for their punishment, than to have it ended by appointment, except it might be thought that they should be able to show some apparent just causes of such an attempt, whereof her Majesty would be sorry to hear. And as for the Queen of Scots coming in person to her Majesty to make answer hereunto, the same being of no small moment to her honour, but rather likely to touch her in reputation, in that it might be thought the accusation so probable, as it not to be improved {disproved} by any other, but that she should be forced to come herself, being a Queen, in person to answer for herself, her Majesty said she would not have the Queen's honour and estate in that matter endangered without this their accusation might first appear to have more likelihood of just cause than she did find therein....
Hereunto the Queen of Scots' Commissioners said that this last motion for an appointment came not from the Queen since the accusation given in by the Earl of Murray, and so also the Queen's Majesty assented thereto, but of their own consideration."
_PRODUCTION OF THE PROOFS_
1568.--Dec. 6. Proofs produced at Westminster.
_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 231, _from the Journal of the Commissioners_.
... They {Murray and others} would show unto her Majesty's Commissioners a collection made in writing of the presumptions and circumstances, by the which it should evidently appear that as the Earl Bothwell was the chief murtherer of the King, so was the Queen a deviser and maintainer thereof; the which writing followeth thus. Articles containing certain conjectures, &c. {the Book of Articles. See _supra_, p. 144}.
After the reading hereof they also said that according to the truth contained in the same, the three estates of Parliament, called by the King, now present, their whole actions and proceedings from the murther of the late King were ratified and approved to be lawful....
_Hosack I., App. C., from State Papers_ (_Mary, Queen of Scots_), 1568, vol. ii. p. 61, December 7, 1568.
... The Queen's Majesty's Commissioners having heard the foresaid Book of Articles read unto them ... entered into a new hearing of the Book of Articles, whereof having heard three of the chapters or heads, the Earl of Murray and his colleagues, according to the appointment, came to the said Commissioners and said: 'They trusted that, after the reading of the Book of Articles, and specially upon the sight of the Act of Parliament, wherein the whole cause wherewith their adversaries did charge them, were found, declared, and concluded to be lawful; their Lordships would be satisfied to think them clear and void of such crime as her Majesty did charge them withal.... They required to know whether their Lordships were not now satisfied with such things as they had seen, and if they were not, and that it would please them to show if in any part of these Articles exhibited they conceived any doubt, or would have any other proof, which they trusted, needed not.... {The Commissioners declined to give any opinion on this point.}
_THE CASKET_
And so they produced a small gilded coffer of not fully one foot long, being garnished in many places with the Roman letter F set under a Royal Crown, wherein were certain letters and writings, and as they said and affirmed to have been written with the Queen of Scots' own hand, to the Earl Bothwell, which coffer, as they said, being left in the Castle of Edinburgh by the said Earl Bothwell before his flying away, was sent for by one George Dalgleish, his servant, who was taken by the Earl of Morton, who also thereto sitting presently as one of the Commissioners avowed upon his oath the same to be true, and the writings to be the very same without any manner of change, and before they would exhibit the sight of these letters they exhibited {the two marriage contracts}.... After this the said Earl and his colleagues offered to show certain proofs, not only of the Queen's hate towards the King, her husband, but also of unordinate love towards Bothwell, for which purpose they produced a letter written in French and in Roman hand, which they averred to be a letter of the said Queen's own hand to Bothwell when she was at Glasgow with her husband, at the time she went to bring him to Edinburgh, the tenour of which letter hereafter followeth: Il semble que avecques ure absence, &c. {Letter i. p. 165.}
_ITS CONTENTS_
After this they produced for the same purpose one other long letter written also with the like hand, and in French, ... the tenour of all which letter followeth hereafter: Estant party du lieu, &c. {Letter ii. p. 167.}
_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 235, _from the Journal of the Commissioners_, December 8.
They produced seven several writings written in French in the like Roman hand, as others her letters which were shewed yesternight and avowed by them to be written by the said Queen, which seven writings, being copied, were read in French, and a due collation made thereof as near as could be by reading and inspection, and made to accord with the originals, which the said Earl of Murray required to be redelivered, and did thereupon deliver the copies being collationed, the tenour of all which seven writings hereafter follow in order, the first being in manner of a sonnet,
"O Dieux, ayez de moy," &c.
[This is the first line of the first of the collection of sonnets, which will be found on pp. 195-201. The other six "writings" are Letters iii.-viii., on pp. 162-195.]
_DEPOSITIONS_
After this they did produce and show three several writings in English, subscribed and signed by Sir John Bellenden, Knight, Justice-Clerk in Scotland, whereof the first contained two several examinations, the first of John Hay, the younger of Talla, the 13th of September, anno 1567, the second of John Hepburn, called John of Bolton, being examined upon the murder of the King, the 8th of December 1567. The third writing containeth the examination of one George Dalgleish, the 26th of June in the same year, 1567. All which writings ... were delivered to the said Commissioners, the true tenour whereof hereafter followeth, _Apud Edinburgh_, 13 die mensis Septembris.
After this they produced and showed forth in writing, subscribed likewise by the said Justice-Clerk, a copy of the process, verdict, and judgment against the foresaid John Hepburn, John Hay, William Powrie, and George Dalgleish, as culpable of the murder of the said King, which being read, was also delivered, and the tenours thereof hereafter followeth, _Curia justiciariae S. D. N. regis_, &c. After this they produced and shewed forth a writing in a long paper, being, as they said, the judgment and condemnation by Parliament of the Earl Bothwell, James Ormiston, Robert Ormiston, Patrick Wilson, and Paris, a Frenchman, Sym, Armstrong, and William Murray, as guilty sundry ways of treason for the murder of the King. The tenour whereof thus followeth: _In the Parliament holden at Edinburgh, the 20th day of December_.
After this they produced and showed a writing signed by Mr. James Macgill, Clerk of the register, containing a request, by way of protestation, by the Earls of Huntly and Argyle, and the Lord Herries, by the which they require to have no fault imputed unto them for not doing their duty since the 10th of June 1567, until the 29th of December then following, for the which, by order of Parliament, they were acquitted....
_THE FINDING OF THE CASKET_
_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 239, from _Journal of the Commissioners_, Cott. Lib. Calig., c. i. p. 252, Dec. 9, 1568.
The Queen's Majesty's Commissioners being occupied in perusing and reading certain letters and sonnets written in French, being duly translated into English, and other writings also exhibited yesterday to them by the Earl of Murray and his colleagues.... After this the Earl of Murray and his colleagues came ... and first the Earl Morton said, that where heretofore he had declared by speech, the manner how he came to the little gilt coffer with the letters, sonnets, and contracts of marriage therein found, and heretofore exhibited: he had caused the same to be put in writing, which also he produced subscribed with his hand, and desired to have it read: which being done, he avowed upon his honour, and the oath which he already took, the same to be true, the tenor whereof followeth, _The true declaration and report_, &c. (see p. 203).
After this the Earl of Murray required that one Thomas Nelson, late servitor to the King that was murdered ... might be heard upon his oath to report his knowledge therein, who, being produced, did present a writing in form of answer of himself to an examination, which being read unto him, he did by a corporal oath affirm the same to be true ... (see p. 207) ...
_CRAWFORD'S EVIDENCE_
The like request was made that one Thomas Crawford, a gentleman of the Earl of Lennox, might be also heard upon his oath, who was, as they said, the same party of whom mention is made in a long letter written in French, and exhibited the 7th of this month.... Whereupon the said Thomas Crawford ... did present a writing, which he said he caused to be made according to the truth of his knowledge, which being read he affirmed upon his corporal oath there taken to be true, the tenour whereof hereafter followeth. The words betwixt the Queen, &c.... The said Crawford said ... that he ... was secretly informed by the King of all things which had passed betwixt the said Queen and the King, to the intent he should report the same to the Earl of Lennox his master ... and that he did, immediately at the same time, write the same word by word as near as he possibly could carry the same away ... (see p. 208).
_Journal of the Privy Council of Hampton Court_, December 14, 1568. _Goodall_, ii. 254.
There were produced sundry letters written in French, supposed to be written by the Queen of Scots' own hand, were then also presently produced and perused; and being read were duly conferred and compared, for the manner of writing and fashion of orthography, with sundry other letters long since heretofore written, and sent by the Queen of Scots to the Queen's Majesty. {The attestation of Morton and the depositions were then read.} ... And forasmuch as the night approached, it was thought good to defer the further declaration of the rest until the next day following.
_Ibid._, December 15.